Quotes about Oppression

We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.

Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.

It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.

Violence was the only weapon that would destroy apartheid.

Prison is designed to break one's spirit and destroy one's resolve. To do this, the authorities attempt to exploit every weakness, demolish every initiative, negate all signs of individuality--all with the idea of stamping out that spark that makes each of us human and each of us who we are.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

His life is circumscribed by racist laws and regulations that cripple his growth, dim his potential, and stunt his life.

Een mens die een ander mens van zijn vrijheid berooft, is een gevangene van de haat, opgesloten achter de tralies van vooroordelen en kleingeestigheid.

I had no epiphany, no singular revelation, no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand indignities, a thousand unremembered moments, produced in me an anger, a rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people.

What freedom am I being offered when my very South African citizenship is not respected?

Society is always trying in some way to grind us down to a single flat surface.

What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt to read a hundred?